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'as soon as is practicable and in any event no later than'.
Government amendments Nos. 40 and 41.
Amendment No. 16, in page 3, line 32, at end insert 'or addresses'.
Government amendment No. 42.
Amendment No. 17, in page 4, leave out line 3.
Amendment No. 18, in page 4, line 7, leave out 'or'.
Amendment No. 19, in page 4, line 8, at end insert--
Amendment No. 20, in page 4, line 14, leave out 'in the United Kingdom'.
Amendment No. 21, in page 4, line 18, at end insert
Government amendment No. 43.
Mr. Michael:
Amendment No. 13 deals with the question of how quickly information about an offender's address or change of address should be notified. The Bill allows 14 days, but in some circumstances, especially if the offender is devious and dangerous, 14 days is a
Amendment No. 14 would require an offender to notify each of his addresses if he uses more than one, rather than just a home address. The other amendments follow that logic.
Amendment No. 41 would place a requirement on offenders who live abroad. I beg your pardon, Mr. Deputy Speaker, amendment No. 41 is the Government amendment that deals with that issue, although not in a totally satisfactory way. Our amendment No. 17 deals with people who live part of the time in this country and part of the time abroad, and would require notification so as to keep track of their circumstances, especially when other members of the family or extended families are involved in both homes. That important area is not covered in the Bill.
Amendment No. 19 would make provision for those who live abroad all the time or part of the time. We suggest that, if an offender lives or intends to live abroad, he should meet the requirements of the Bill
The amendment gives a sensible, commonsense definition of what an individual would have to do, but avoids the gap in the treatment of offenders that would be created if offenders who moved abroad did not have to notify the police of their address. It provides sufficient flexibility so that responsibility can be placed on the offender. If someone moves abroad and does not return, failure to notify is not a problem. The amendment places the onus on the offender, and puts a residual power in the hands of the police should someone move abroad and then move backwards and forwards without due respect for the provisions of the Bill and the requirements placed on him as a result of his committing an offence that is identified in the schedules. I commend the amendments to the House.
Mr. Kirkhope:
I sympathise with the desire of the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) for the police to have up-to-date information at the earliest possible opportunity, which I believe is being sought in amendments Nos 13 and 15. I do not, however, believe that that approach would work in practice. What would be the earliest practical moment is a highly uncertain basis for the establishment of a criminal offence. It would put a burden on the courts to decide whether it would have been practicable for an offender to register sooner than he did, even if he registered within the 14-day limit. I do not believe that we should give the courts, the police or the prosecutors such an uncertain issue to decide, or make criminal liability dependent on that outcome. Fourteen days is a reasonable time; it is not excessive, and the public would not be provided with any further protection through the proposed changes.
Nor do I believe that the requirement in amendments Nos. 14 and 16 to register all addresses that an offender
visits--even for a period of one night--is practical. The police would be swamped with too much information. Moreover, I am not sure what the point is of recording an address that the offender has visited once and may never visit again. Nevertheless, I recognise the concern expressed in Committee that focusing the registration requirements solely on the offender's main residence might be insufficient.
I have already said that we cannot attach registration to every address that an offender visits, but we have decided to extend the registration requirement to any other address at which an offender spends 14 days or more in any 12-month period. That is the basis of our amendments. Such a measure will catch both long periods away from home at a single address--such as away-from-home working and holiday periods--and regular visits to another address for shorter periods which have a cumulative effect. Our proposals are contained in amendments Nos. 40 to 43.
Amendments Nos. 17 to 21, which seek to place offenders under an obligation to report overseas addresses, suffer from the same difficulties of impracticality and enforcement as the other amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Michael) in respect of notifying addresses. We debated whether that would be possible at an earlier stage, and I made it clear then that, because the police would have no basis on which to determine whether an offence had been committed, they would not be able to prove where an offender had been when he was abroad. The matter has been carefully considered, but I am afraid that I do not see any way in which we can impose a registration requirement on those who leave, or have left, the United Kingdom. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment.
Mr. Michael:
I am disappointed by the Minister's response to what I felt were constructive amendments, but I do not intend to delay the House by pressing the matter further. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments made: No. 40, in page 3, leave out line31 and insert 'this section;'.
No. 41, in page 3, line 32, at end insert
No. 42, in page 3, line 33, leave out
and insert
No. 43, in page 4, line 18, at end insert--
Mr. Thurnham:
I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 5, line 18, at end insert--
This important amendment deals with whether children should be required to register. It amends the Bill so that notification requirements would not apply to a person aged under 16 unless the court directed otherwise. It is important because it affects sentencing, treatment and rehabilitation of children who have committed a criminal offence and, moreover, are themselves in need. It also highlights the complications involved in sex abuse by young offenders, and forces us to approach the problem of paedophiles realistically rather than in black-and-white terms of victims and monsters.
We are talking about people who are required to register, but who themselves are probably the victims. Approximately 50 per cent. of those who abuse children were abused themselves, and many of the young offenders we are discussing are still being abused by the adults around them. Recent scandals of paedophile rings in local authority care homes in Wales and Cheshire have shown the appalling prevalence of such situations. I was disturbed to learn the other day that a young constituent of mine was in one of the homes in Cheshire.
Any child who is in care should be looked after properly. The last thing that should happen is that they should be subject to abuse when they are supposed to be in care. Children who are suffering abuse can all too easily get mixed up in paedophile networks, abusing younger children because they think that it is the normal thing to do. The Bill is all about the protection of children, and child offenders should be treated separately from adult offenders. People involved in the treatment of young sex offenders, notably the National Association for the Development of Work with Sex Offenders and the Association of Chief Officers of Probation have both stressed that they do not believe that inclusion on a register is appropriate for children.
Also, the Childrens Charities Consortium--the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Childline, the National Children's Home Action for Children, Barnardo's, Save the Children Fund, the National Children's Bureau, and the National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations--for which the protection of the victims of sexual abuse is the highest priority, has expressed extreme disappointment that the Government have included young offenders in the Bill because there are more appropriate ways in which to deal with child offenders, and extra stigmatisation could be detrimental to a child's chances of rehabilitation.
Young child sex offenders highlight the importance of appropriate treatment procedures and full rehabilitation. I was extremely disturbed during the Second Reading debate at the lack of knowledge of the success of treatment programmes in dramatically reducing reoffending rates. If we want seriously to tackle the possibility of offenders reoffending--the issue at the heart of the Bill--we must look to proper treatment programmes.
Home Office research gives indisputable evidence of the effectiveness of treatment programmes, with an average 40 per cent. reduction in reoffending rates following the STEP programme--the sex offender treatment evaluation project. I was disappointed that the Home Office publication, dated 1994, is out of print. I asked for a copy of it. When I saw the Minister of State, Home Office, who is responsible for prisons, she indicated that she would let me have one. I never received it and I have had to borrow a copy from Don Finlater, who runs the excellent treatment programme at the Wolvercote clinic, directed by the Faithfull Foundation. The clinic has similar effectiveness. It is scandalous that the Department of Health has no plans for relocation of Wolvercote after selling off the present site.
The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department may be interested to know that on Monday I visited Ashworth special hospital and understood that it might be possible to find room on the Ashworth site for the location of a paedophile treatment centre. Therefore, if the Government are interested in providing residential treatment, that would be one possible site. Obviously, there would not be any requirement for planning permission.
If the Government view protection of children from sex offenders as a priority, they must make treatment a priority. If sex offenders are going to be released from prison once they have served their sentence, it is vital that we do all we can to ensure that they do not reoffend. Some members of the Children's Charities Consortium, for example the NSPCC and Barnardo's, have direct experience of working with young sex offenders through their treatment programmes. There is much evidence to show that young sex offenders are amenable to treatment and that appropriate intervention is likely to be more immediately effective than with adult offenders. It has been stressed to me that extra stigmatisation would not help treatment of such young children, so I call on the Government to provide more facilities for treatment for both adult and young sex abusers of children. For the Government not to do so is to fail in the duty to protect children.
The registration periods in the Bill relate to the sentence given. For juveniles, that can mean detention in a young offender institution or training in a training school. For sentences of under 30 months, the Bill cuts to 50 per cent. the length of time that under-18s have to register, but once children cross that 30-month threshold, they are required to register for life. That may mean just 30 months in a training school. It cannot be viewed as being such a serious matter if a child goes to a training school, which may be the most important treatment that the child can have, but then in doing so he could be required to register for life. The offence might be no more than having a photograph. A nine or 10-year-old, for example, might have been given a photograph by an adult abuser, admitted having the photograph, be sent to a 30-month training school and consequently discover that he must register for life. The possibility is quite bizarre.
Sentencing of child offenders should always place great emphasis on rehabilitation as well as on punishment. It is hoped that young offenders' treatment programmes will be extended because of their success in reducing reoffending rates. The time that a court decides is necessary for treatment should not be influenced by a judge's desire for the child not to come under the lifetime registration requirement provided in the Bill.
In Committee, the Minister said:
The criminal justice system rightly treats juveniles differently from adults. The Bill should recognise that fact, rather than somehow, by sleight of hand, relying on judges not to be compromised in deciding the necessary treatment.
The Children's Charities Consortium was concerned with the consequences of parental responsibility for young offenders' registration, because, in many cases, young sex offenders may well be experiencing sexual abuse within their own families. We must realise that much sexual abuse occurs within families, and that a child might be required to register when he or she is abused.
'; or
(c) if he lives or intends to live abroad, by sending a written notification of his decision to live abroad and his home address or addresses to a police station in his local police area or, in the case of a person who is living abroad, in the local police area in the United Kingdom in which he last lived.'
'or, if he lives abroad, the police area in which his last home in the United Kingdom was situated.
"as soon as is practicable and in any event no later than"
14 days.
"by sending a written notification of his decision to live abroad and his home address or addresses to a police station in his local police area or, in the case of a person who is living only abroad, in the police area in the United Kingdom in which he last lived."
9.15 pm
'or
(c) his having resided or stayed, for a qualifying period, at any premises in the United Kingdom the address of which has not been notified to the police under this section,'.
'or, as the case may be, the effect of that change'
', the effect of that change or, as the case may be, the address of those premises'.
' "qualifying period" means--
(a) a period of 14 days; or
(b) two or more periods, in any period of 12 months, which (taken together) amount to 14 days.'--[Mr. Kirkhope.]
'(1A) Subject to subsection (1B) below, this Part does not apply to a person who is under 16 on the relevant date.
(1B) In the case of a person falling within section 1(1)(a) or (b) above who is under 16 on the relevant date, the court may direct that this Part shall have effect.'.
"I emphasise strongly that there are no situations in which someone guilty of the relevant offences should be able to escape the registration requirement. Nor do I think that the registration period should be capable of alteration. The Bill sets tough periods of registration which will put a great obligation on people."--[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 4 February 1997; c. 24.]
However, the Minister seemed to realise the inappropriateness of such an approach for young sex offenders. When I raised the possibility of a nine or 10-year-old being in possession of an indecent photograph, he said that it is
"unlikely that a court would handle such a case so as to leave such a young child liable for a lifetime registration."--[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 6 February 1997; c. 77.]
I read that statement to mean that the Minister could envisage a situation in which someone guilty of the relevant offence should be able to escape the notification requirement.
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